7. Ernie Coy

When Ernie Coy opens his brief case the first thing you will notice is all the different name tags for all the various offices he has held over his 24 years as a Knight ofCouncil #8157. “I’ve held just about every office for this Council – I’ve been InsideGuard, Treasurer, Deputy Grand Knight, Grand Knight and Financial Secretary”.When I asked him what his favorite job was, he said “well, I’d have to say FinancialSecretary because I’ve been doing that job for such a long time. I know all the ins and out of keeping track of membership, dues, and so on”. When he took on the job of Financial Secretary “I was only going to do this until we got things squared away;but here I am 20 years later still Financial Secretary”. Ernie said his major accomplishment”was growing the Council by 10% during my time”. And that time asGrand Knight would be from July 1992 thru June 1993· Total membership at the end of his term was 78. That was during a time when the council relied almost exclusively on the parish breakfast for their income. “I used to go to the meat place in Dallas and pick up bacon and eggs every time we had a breakfast” said Ernie. He recalled a breakfast with 319 parishioners in attendance. Ernie said “of course, back then we used to cook the bacon and carry it through the Narthex; people in church would get to smelling that aroma and come to the breakfast after”. The good Father has put a halt to that. The Council had a bank balance in excess of $9,000 during his tenure. “I was very pleased to be elected Grand Knight since I had only been a Knight since 1988”. Ernie said there was no one most important event during his time; we “just kept everything going and maintained order”. Meetings then generally had 15 members present. Tony Perez was Knight of the Year during Ernie tenure. Ernie was born and raised in San Antonio, went to catholic high school there and moved to Dallas in 1963 and worked for AAFES for 32 years and is now a detention Officer for the Dallas County Sheriffs Dept. He is married to Claudia, has 6 children, 20 grandchildren and 8 great grand kids.